There’s no doubt that President Obama won the public relations battle in the Great War of the Debt Ceiling.

Steve Gunn

He managed to paint himself as the responsible defender of America’s sterling credit rating, and paint the Republicans as irresponsible budget-cutters who were willing to throw the nation into financial chaos.

That’s fine. The president has always been a PR specialist, gifted at telling the public what it wants to hear. He will probably PR his way to another term in office.

But the Republicans under Speaker John Boehner are the real heroes of this story. They insisted on using the debt ceiling issue to force the president to face the ugly reality of our runaway national debt and the crucial need to cut spending.

Make no mistake — if the Republicans did not control the House, there would have been no budget cutting. By nature the president is not a budget balancer. He took office with an FDR agenda in mind. He wanted to spend money freely, regardless of the existing debt, in an effort to rebuild the economy.

And he spent plenty on his initial “stimulus package” — about $800 billion, if I recall. And the economy is still struggling. Unemployment is still hovering around 10 percent, despite administration promises that it would be 8 percent or lower.

The president has provided definitive evidence that government cannot spend the nation back to prosperity.

But the poor results of the spending spree did not deter Obama. The president was hoping for a second massive stimulus package, before the Republicans gained control of the House and restored some sense of fiscal sanity.

It’s true that elected officials from both parties are responsible for our frightening national debt. But only one party had the courage to insist that spending be curtailed. Only one party had the courage to suggest changes to sacred programs like Social Security and Medicare, before they hit the financial rocks.

The Republicans did not come out of this showdown with the public on their side. Once again they seem like the mean guys and gals who want to steal food from the mouths of children and the elderly. They are the party poopers who want to cut off the stream of free goodies from Capitol Hill.

But without Republican insistence on large budget cuts, the federal debt would continue to spiral out of control.

The final compromise was far from perfect. A balanced budget constitutional amendment, sent to the states for their approval, would have been ideal. But on the positive side, there appear to be no tax increases. The federal government will never learn to live within its means as long as it has a steady flow of fresh revenue to fund its foolishness.

The American people should insist that nobody pays higher federal taxes for the foreseeable future, including the rich. That way the government will be forced to prioritize, make tough decisions and balance its budget. The government is a lot like a teenager with a spending problem. He will never learn to manage his money if we keep replacing his blown allowance.

Nobody had it tougher than Boehner over the past few weeks. He was forced to negotiate with a very liberal president whose instincts are to spend money and send the bill to working people. At the same time he was forced to negotiate with tea party activists who thought that any sort of compromise with the White House was unacceptable.

Guess what, tea partiers. We have a two-party system, and nothing gets done without compromise. The nation clearly wants the White House and Congress to work together on pressing problems, and that’s what Boehner did. Without compromise there would be no budget cuts to speak of.

If the tea partiers bolt from the Republican Party because of this compromise, they will all but guarantee a second term for Obama. If they’re willing to lose elections to remain true to their principles, I guess there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

But the bottom line is this: America’s standing in international financial markets is better today, not only because the nation will pay its bills on time, but also because Congress finally displayed a willingness to address our long-term debt. Speaker Boehner and the Republicans can be proud of that fact, even if they receive little or no credit.